2023-04-16 09:58:07
After years of delay, Finland put its new French-designed EPR nuclear reactor into commercial service on Sunday, just hours following the effective exit of the civil atom from Germany with the shutdown of its last power plants.
After 18 years of construction that turned into an endless soap opera, the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor, on the south-west coast of Finland, has completed its production test phase and is now fully operational, announced its operator, TVO.
Built by the French group Areva with the German Siemens, it thus becomes the most powerful nuclear reactor in operation in Europe.
“The tests have been completed and regular electricity production has begun,” said TVO, which started commercial operation overnight from Saturday to Sunday.
Including the two existing old reactors 1 and 2, “regarding 30% of Finnish electricity is now produced in Olkiluoto”, he added.
Sunday around 09:30 GMT, more than half of Finland’s electricity came from the atom.
Construction of the 1,600 megawatt reactor, which alone provides around 14% of Finland’s electricity production, began in 2005.
It had already been started at the end of December 2021 and reached its full electrical power of 1,600 megawatts for the first time on September 30.
Trials, themselves marked by delays, had been going on for several months.
Launched in 1992 as the ultimate in French nuclear technology, the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) was designed to revive nuclear energy in Europe, in the followingmath of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
The new model is touted as offering both higher power and better safety, but its construction proves to be a headache, and not just in Finland.
– Debacle for Areva –
In France, the construction of the Flamanville EPR, which began in 2007, was also affected by massive delays, due in particular to anomalies in the steel cover and the reactor vessel.
The EPR has also been chosen for a two-reactor plant at Hinkley Point, in the south-west of England.
Electricity production is currently planned for mid-2027, instead of 2025 initially.
Two EPR reactors have already been commissioned in China, making Olkiluoto the third in operation in the world.
The enormous additional costs of the Finnish project started in 2005 were one of the main causes of the industrial dismantling of Areva, weighed down by losses of several billion euros.
A structure remains, whose main task is to complete the Olkiluoto site, but most of the group has passed into the hands of EDF.
Despite this fiasco at Olkiluoto, support for civilian nuclear power has grown in recent years in Finland, spurred by climate concerns and global energy tensions.
According to a poll published in May, 60% of Finns are now in favor of it, a record.
Coincidentally, the entry into commercial service of the Finnish EPR comes at the very moment when Germany has shut down its last three reactors.
The Isar 2 (southeast), Neckarwestheim (southwest) and Emsland (northwest) power plants were disconnected from the electricity grid before midnight (22:00 GMT), as planned.
Their shutdown marks the culmination of more than 20 years of phasing out atomic energy in the country, despite controversies and the recent energy crisis in Europe.
This strategy of renouncing the atom, perceived as dangerous by large sections of the population, disconcerts many of Germany’s partners, such as France, who believe that nuclear power has a role to play in decarbonizing electricity production. .
The energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine has revived nuclear energy, with its excellent carbon footprint, as an alternative to fossil fuels, including Russian gas.
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